


someday we'll be lions

by encroix



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: F/M, Pacific Rim Big Bang, Post-War, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-08
Updated: 2013-12-08
Packaged: 2018-01-03 22:55:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1074025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/encroix/pseuds/encroix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the war, Mako and Raleigh find each other, lose each other, and remember that sometimes living is a fight all on its own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	someday we'll be lions

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by Somaya (@hayaatsmaarg). For Pacific Rim Big Bang 2013. Fanmix by @kaidonovskys can be found [here](http://8tracks.com/kaidonovskys/someday-we-ll-be-lions).

 

 

Falling is easy.

Falling is gravity and the weight of a body. As close to flight as he can get.

It's after the fall that's difficult. When there's stones to pick out of dented skin, and scraped knees and blood in the mouth, when it's hard to remember anything other than the pain.

It's raining sparks in the Jaeger and he turns to her, looking nearly asleep in the evac pod, and touches his hands to it. (It isn't a fairy tale moment. This is not the moment of awakening, but the last breath of a monster falling to its knees, and he thinks yes, he thinks he can fall, he thinks it's the only thing left that makes sense.

The final act of a dying man. The last thing he can do that'll mean anything.

She's asleep; she doesn't say anything. She lets him.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the fall, there is nothing but dust. Every impact has consequences and he knows that, or he should have known that, should have learned that from the first dozen or so falls he's taken in his life.

The lessons are always changing. And this time feels different than the last, doesn't it?

(After all, she walks you through it. She holds your hand and she ferries you from place to place and reminds you that you are not unanchored; that you have mooring; that, now, you are connected to something greater. A machine now lying dormant in another dimension, yes, that, but also to a greater network of people all working for the world, all working for peace, and you are part of that now, too.

She is part of greatness, and you've become part of her. And isn't that a sweet lesson to swallow?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It doesn't last. The way newfound change never seems to last.

Everything falls into familiar pieces. He thinks he'll stay this time (he doesn't), he thinks he's found something to anchor him (he has), and that it'll be enough this time (it isn't). The truth is that he can never forget the feeling of emptiness in his chest, the reminder that something is chasing him, that death follows his steps and that there is nowhere left to go except to hide in the spaces of other people's memories and feelings and thoughts.

He thinks about staying and his skin itches.

He thinks about staying and remembers a dozen other places where he had promised to stay. Where death had followed and touched him there, and looks at her and thinks not her, thinks not this time. And it isn't noble, and it isn't healthy, but cowardice isn't a new feeling.

Running isn't a new feeling.

(He needs to save her to save himself. And if he does this, and it hurts, well, it means they're alive, doesn't it?

It means they're still alive.)

 

 

 

 

So he runs to Alaska. Milwaukee. Detroit.

Baptizes himself in the briny cold of the Atlantic and hopes the gray-green waters there will convince him of some kind of new truth. New beginnings always start in the ocean, isn't that what he learned from his service in the PPDC? But there's nothing but starfish and dying jellyfish on the shores, the sand cutting hard against the bottoms of his feet, and he peers at the water and wishes it were clear.

He writes her a letter once. Apologies between the lines, and no return address. Posts it and doesn't double check the amount of postage. Leaves before anyone can issue a reply.

 

 

 

 

After all, this is supposed to be normal. There are reports, aren't there? Numbers and numbers of reports from the PPDC back when it was still a fully funded agency, of scientists who said that it wasn't physical, it was beyond the neural load, it was about the brain's ability to make connections and the emotional weight.

That's what kills flight. That's what breaks you after the fall. The weight. Of the world finding your bones, of the air crushing its way back through you, of the rattle in your chest when you hit something solid and are reminded of your own fragility.

And how can he adjust now? What lesson is there to learn here when he has lost partners, lost people he never drifted with and one he did, lost fathers, lost something close to one that wasn't one? What else is there to do but wander? He isn't strong like them - like her - and he knows that. Never pretended otherwise. So let her and Tendo walk back into the base like the soldiers that they are. He can't. He isn't able to.

(And in his head, Stacker shouts the way he did at Mako as a child; the way parents yell at children who have erred. In his head, Stacker makes a face and he bows and feels the shift of hair, dark and even in its color, over his - not his - shoulders and the weight of deference bowing his body.

_it isn't obedience, mr. becket._

No, it isn't.

It's a whole other ball game entirely.)

 

 

 

 

He writes her more letters. Sends postcards.

His messy script packs itself into tight lines that creep up the edges of the card, full of all the things he doesn't know how to say. Full of secrets and whispered weaknesses, full of things that he shouldn't say to her. Things like i miss you and i know i fucked up and god, i think that maybe i love you.

Hopes it doesn't show.

Presses his thumb to the wet ink and smudges the words with the pad of his thumb instead. A kiss from his hand to hers. A reminder of the tether that used to link their bodies.

Their minds.

And the heart of a giant machine. (It was always Gipsy. His heart can't take the load. Can't repair itself.

His heart.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She finds him.

It isn't an easy road. She tracks down connections, follows the things he doesn't say and wanders her way to the eastern seaboard of the United States. Smells the air and wrinkles her nose and laughs.

"Are you ready to go home?" she asks, and he looks at her. The laugh is crisp on the tip of her tongue, and she wears it easy, the forgiveness. The sedate happiness that comes after a long period of grief. Of sadness, of mourning.

She wears it better than he ever has. Peace. He means peace.

He shoves his hands deep into his pockets and clenches at the shore with his toes. "What are you talking about?"

"You are a very difficult man to find," she says.

He shrugs. "Nah. Not really."

"In principle."

He tilts his head. Feels the touch of her habit over the gesture.

She laughs again. "Had to let you find yourself first."

"And did I?"

"You tell me."

In the distance, the shoreline drifts out towards another continent. Another land untouched by the kaiju, full of people who have lived distantly from war and thought nothing of the death and destruction, who felt nothing other than pity and maybe a vague sense of guilt that made them donate to relief efforts.

He shouldn't hate those people, he knows that.

"Thought you had all the answers."

"Does that mean I need to give them to you?"

He swears. An errant Chinese remark picked up from Hong Kong.

"No," he says. "I guess you don't."

"Are you ready?" she asks. "To go home?"

The same question. Same voice. The crests of waves bounce along in their perpetual motion. Pushing things around, forcing motion into stillness.

"Where's that?"

"I'm staying in Hong Kong. Near the water."

"Is it safe there?"

"Cheaper because it isn't," she answers. "Besides, the others like to fish around for kaiju parts. Marshal Hansen is staying elsewhere."

"And what have you been doing?"

"Looking for you."

"Besides that."

She hums."Besides that…" she begins. Her hand reaches out, fingers brushing against the curve of his palm to tug at the fingers she can reach. "Working. Same as always."

In his head, the same lines of the riddle repeat. Over and over again, like a mystery that waits for him to solve it so that it can rest. (He wants to rest. Same as everyone else.)

"Are you ready?"

He reaches down, scoops a few loose stones into his palm. Squints out at the water, and lets them fly.

"Yes," he says. "Yeah, I think I'm ready to get the hell out of here."

"Good," she says; good, she laughs, and wrinkles her nose. "I don't like it here."

 

 

 

 

 

The rest of it is easy. Like the way pulling a string can mean undoing an entire knot. Just have to let the fall take over. Let gravity work its own magic.

He returns to Hong Kong. Still steamy, still muggy, still packed full of people and echoing with Cantonese at every turn. The pork dumplings are still as delicious as he remembered, and she buys him a beer to welcome him home.

Tendo meets them at the restaurant, grins at him as he wipes down his plate and teacup. "My man," he says, and Raleigh shakes his head. Can think of no other place he'd want to be.

They even give him the first dumpling.

"All right, _daai lou_?" Tendo says, and Raleigh stabs his chopsticks into another dumpling just to piss him off.

"Yeah," he says, grinning as he bites into the thin skin. "I'm good."

 

 

 

 

 

He and Mako fall into their own gravity soon enough. Should have learned that the moment he surfaced; should have figured that when he did an impossible mission and the power of her spirit was enough to pull his to surface too.

It isn't neat.

It's getting drunk on a Wednesday night and scattered reports across the floor of her room; it's the noise her dogtags make when they click against each other against her collarbone; it's the sharp pitch of her gasp when he traces the edge of the dogtags with his finger and finds her skin instead;

She opens her mouth to him and he trips over her ankle and they fall to the hard floor and she laughs against his jaw, and his knees are aching - he was too old for these kinds of pratfalls years ago - but it doesn't matter; none of it matters; Mako presses her knee against his thigh and leans up to run her hands underneath his shirt, and he sees flashes of the past, sees the drift.

Teenage Mako runs across the front of his memory, all rebellion and stolen cigarettes and Stacker's old bomber jacket and tight jeans, and he sucks in a breath.

"You weren't such a saint yourself," she says, and he chuckles. A low, warm noise.

"No," he says. "I wasn't."

She rakes her nails across his stomach and he pushes himself up to brace against his hands. "Shh," she says.

"Are we doing this?" he says. "I mean, what are we - "

Her eyes meet his, and there's nothing but strength there. Confidence, too. "What are you asking? Do you want to?"

Her head falls back, revealing a pale column of throat and he leans down and runs his mouth down to her collarbone. Scrapes his teeth lightly against the jut of bone.

Her laugh stutters. "So…"

"But we're…" he says, and doesn't know how to finish the sentence. Pilots? Partners? In each other's heads?

He wants this to be safe.

She rolls her hips against him, and he can't help the groan that escapes.

His eyes find hers again, and her hand slips into his hair. Scratches lightly against his scalp.

 _i've got you_ , she whispers, or she thinks, and there is no difference.

 

 

 

 

 

He finds that life means living again. Means the noise of her laughter in the unexpected places, in the secret places, in the wrinkled corner of the flat bedsheet that she hides under in the mornings.

Life means trying to figure out how to balance his budget, how to fix leaking windows and roofs, and call appliance repairmen, how to make sure he eats on a regular schedule and doesn't wear his body out (exhaustion isn't the goal anymore; numbness isn't the goal anymore; hiding isn't his ambition anymore).

She's the less responsible one. All discipline until someone talks about chicken nuggets and chocolate.

He buys her flowers - the wrong ones, always, because he can't remember the difference between lilies and orchids, or remember what the names of them are, and just defaults to anything other than roses - and he tries to cook dinner and she complains about the softness of his rice. The weight of her body becomes a familiar thing.

The weight of her body becomes another law of physics, another hardline rule of the universe for him to guide by. Latitude and longitude, two and two is four -

She holds him while she sleeps and he starts to think this is what life feels like - the weight of her hand against his shoulder, the way she grows her nails long and sometimes scratches him in the middle of the night. Absentmindedly, sleepily, accidentally.

 

 

 

 

(Life after war is never a simple ending.

The nightmares don't stop. He still wakes up in the middle of the night and sobs; she still wakes up in the middle of the night, panting with anxiety, reaching for the nearest thing she has to defend herself - from the monsters, from the monsters - and every rattling windowpane in the winter sounds like imminent and immediate danger.

They're soldiers. They're supposed to be trained well.

And they are - there are bats and weapons underneath the bed, in the back corners of the closets, tucked in with the umbrellas and the umbrella stand - but that doesn't change the terror that lies in the shadows, that lies in memories, in reliving things that can never be changed.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He dreams of Yancy one night. Lounging on top of the stretch of anti-kaiju wall somewhere in the Yukon with a beer bottle knocking against the side, his dogtags bright in the daylight.

When he walks over, the asshole starts laughing.

 _what's so fucking funny _,__ and Yancy opens an eye to squint at him _ _.__

___the hell are you still doing here?_ _ _

Raleigh repeats his question _ _.__ Takes a seat on the edge and lets his heels knock against the wall.

 _ _ _you,___ Yancy says _ _ _. _you're hilarious_. ___ He shakes his head, and Yancy takes another long pull from the bottle. _ _ __she's not who i would have thought_. ___ He grins, and his teeth click. _ _ __not your type.____

____yeah? and what's my type?_ _ _ _

____your type is… nancy pomeroy. you remember her? tenth grade, and_ …___ he clicks his tongue.

The wind howls, and Raleigh shivers. Nearly falls off the edge.

The wind calls Yancy's name. ____you're still here.____

 _ _ _ _i'm always here, asshole_ , ___Yancy says, laughing. The sun clips across the top of the sky and goes to rest against the nearby boughs of a tree. Their old Christmas tree, shining with ornaments, standing tall in the distance. ____she's good for you. you'll take care o' each other._ ___

He doesn't get the joke.

____yance?_ _ _ _

____knock knock, kid._ _ _ _

The same way he'd start every joke, rapping his fist against the top of Raleigh's head.

(He disappears. Never did have any good punchlines.

 

 

Raleigh wakes up and finds Mako's hand scratching its way up his bare back.)

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

Time works differently in the post-war.

He kisses her and can't stop thinking about it; he kisses her and time begins to move slower than usual; he kisses her and thinks of the old parades, of cheering coworkers and teammates, of sparking acetylene torches against giant Jaeger torsos.

He kisses her; it is a monument unto itself.

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

Tendo doesn't make any comments. Doesn't try to get involved where he knows his advice doesn't belong. He's still friends with both of them, and he's been in the program longer than the two of them together. He knows how this works.

 _ _ _ _Be careful, Becket boy_ , ___Tendo tells him once at dim sum when Allison and Mako are in the bathroom. _ _ _You need to know what you're getting into here.___ One of Tendo's sons squalls then, and he reaches for the kid, grunting as he sets him in his lap. Bounces his knee.

They've all gotten so old.

 _ _ _ _I know what I'm doing_ , ___Raleigh says _ _ _,___ and the boy reaches out with a sticky hand to push at his leg _ _ _.___

____Not with her, you idiot. You're both still in the program, you know. If they find out, or if things go south…_ _ _ _

He shakes his head _ _ _. _They won't._ ___

Tendo shrugs _ _ _. _Stranger things have happened._ ___

But it isn't as if things between Mako and him have changed. They're still the same Jaeger pilots they were before they fell into this. They still train together, spar together, talk about rebuilding new Jaegers and the future of the PPDC.

____We're still the same._ _ _ _

And Tendo's son kicks him in the knee.

____World changes, brother. Life goes on._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____ _ _

____ _ _

____ _ _

____ _ _

____ _ _

 

That night, he sleeps with Mako curled up against him. Listens to the sound of her breathing as she falls asleep. Thinks of Tendo's son, and the turn of the earth, and the way the ocean sounds lapping over his head.

Presses his hand over her heart and feels its solid beat. A small, loud drum. A beacon.

___ _

___ _

 

 

 

(It isn't what you think. It doesn't go the way he plans, or the way she used to dream as a kid.

She wakes up and he's already awake, hasn't slept much. She's awake, and the corner of the flat sheet is pulled up over her mouth and she's grinning. Wants to kiss him with the flat taste of the morning in her mouth, and thinks too much of him to do it.

He smiles back at her, and the light is breaking in shards over the cold floor of the room.

She gasps, and he knows she can hear what he's thinking. Was always one step ahead of him. Still is.

 

Makes him say it anyway.

 

"You're not serious," she says.

He bites his lip and grins. His cheeks pinch and he looks in her face and sees the morning.

"I'm serious," he says.

She laughs. "Raleigh."

He leans in, lets the bridge of his nose bump along the curve of her own. His teeth click and he can't find the words.

"Wait," she whispers. "Wait. Let me brush my teeth."

She disappears to the bathroom and he laughs. Hears the running water of the tap and the quick noise of the toothbrush, and can't think of anything else to say but her name.

 

 

Her feet are cold when she creeps back under the sheets. Her breath smells like mint.

"Okay," she says, beaming. "I'm ready."

Her chin tilts up to look at him, and the light catches her hair.

"Come on," she says.

"You're getting pushy now, huh?"

She slides her feet against his and he shivers. "Yes, I'm getting pushy. Come on." Her scowl slides into a smirk.

His fingers play with the ends of her sweater. Her hands press against his cheeks, against the base of his neck. Her forehead presses against his. A reminder of everything that they've survived, of everything that shaped them, that pushed them here.

There are words. More poetic words, longer lines of reasons why she's beautiful and why he loves her and why it makes sense. What comes out of his mouth is none of those things. Instead, he says, "Fly with me."

The only thing that makes sense.

"Now?" she asks.

"Whenever." _ _ __for the rest of our lives._ ___

Her fingers slide along his jaw, down to his neck, his shoulders. Curling around the curve of his shoulder.

She kisses him. A slow, wet kiss. Her lips rough over his, her tongue brushing against the tops of his teeth.

He tilts his head, leans into the kiss, and she pulls away. Blinks at him.

The sunlight through the window becomes hazy light. Filling their bodies, filling the room.

"You're impossible," she says. Presses a quick kiss to his mouth, his jaw, the tip of his nose.

"Will you?" he asks.

In the drift, a flash of their meeting. Their first kiss. The first time they slept together.

She swallows and he follows the bob of her throat.

"I will."

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

The ceremony isn't a ceremony.

There's a small sun-soaked room on the base, and Herc and Tendo stand and hover in the corners in their dress whites. Hardly any reason to bust them out anymore except for special occasions, and what special occasions are left?

He holds her hands in his and they hold it in the light and bask in the warmth. Smile at each other and say nothing. Her hair is grown long now; the blue color has faded into the black. She wears a white sundress with a red sash; he wears one of the old PPDC uniforms.

There are no rings, no promises of forever, no til death. They already know. They've already made their declarations.

Herc growls for them to get on with it. Tendo officiates.

He squeezes her hands and kisses the tops of her knuckles and whispers her name like a promise.

___ _

 

 

 

The reception is a private one. Just the two of them with their ration trays and cups of tea, sitting in the old hangar - now empty - in silence. There are no rings, just red twine knotted around their little fingers.

On top of small piles of cold spinach and chunky-looking meatloaf sits a piece of triangle sponge cake. A gift from Tendo. Still wrapped in the greasy paper from the bakery he bought it at.

She grins and tears it into small pieces with her hands. Feeds him one.

"Is this what you thought it was going to be?" she asks, and he takes the opportunity to lick the pad of her finger.

The room is empty except for them. Quiet and dark. Shuttered.

"You know," he says, "sometimes I think I can still hear them."

Mako sits up, leans her hands on the grating of the floor and peers out into the empty space. Listens for the noise. Cranes for it.

"The Jaegers," he says. "You know, all the noise…?"

She nods once. A decisive motion. "I hear it."

"You do?"

Her eyes close and he takes the opportunity to feed her a piece of cake. She hums around it, and nods again.

"I built her," she says. "I can still hear her heart beating."

He closes his eyes and tunes out the noise. Listens. Hears the whir of an old Jaeger growing quieter. Calmer.

"Do you hear it?" she asks.

He opens his eyes, and her face is hovering near his. Nearly touching. "I hear you," he says.

"And what am I saying?"

He leans in and whispers in her ear.)

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

He begins to wear peace like a familiar sweater. Realizes its comfort and assumes it for granted.

It isn't hard. Not when Mako makes life seem like a series of new days.

The fall's been done. The fall can't be done here anymore.

___ _

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___ _

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___ _

They grow into it and learn new things about each other, learn things the drift doesn't cover: how she stays up late at night but can't sleep past sunrise, how she loves to make tea and coffee for others, how she hates to do laundry but doesn't mind mopping the floors.

He learns he doesn't mind keeping house as much as he once thought he would. Even so, they find other projects to occupy their time - she begins to freelance her work as a contractor across diplomatic and scientific missions and uses a portion of her funds to keep the PPDC at baseline functionality. And he?

He finds his way back to flight. Teaches at the base, at the military academy, with a few offhand international lectures here and there about the Jaeger pilot program. A few fluff pieces about his status as a former celebrity, about what he's doing now, about reminiscences of the war.

 _ _ _ _are you happy?____ she asks him once, already beginning to fall asleep.

He'd kissed the top of her head then and whispered her name. Sang a line of a Japanese song. ____you know the answer to that. you're in my head._ ___

She squeezed his hand in response. _ _ __but i like to hear you say it._ ___

___ _

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How could anything like this last?

 

 

It isn't a question of falling apart; the red string around their little fingers doesn't fray. It is a question of demons.

 

 

(The kaiju return.

At first, staying silent. Remaining deep in the crevice in the ocean between dimensions, mingling with bits of the dying Jaeger. Gestating, growing, rebuilding. Rebirthing themselves.

At first, biding their time.

And when they break through the breach again, there are no alarms. No crews desperately awaiting news of new attacks.

The kaiju slither out of the breach and breed in the water.

 

 

The war, only just beginning.)

___ _

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___ _

____The metal of the Jaeger is screaming with every moving joint, every moving part. She wasn't built to stand so much._ _ _ _

____The kaiju knocks another heavy warped limb against the side, and sparks spit at the side. Mako yells, clenches her fists to maintain control, and a shard of jagged metal rips along the side of her suit._ _ _ _

____She pushes the pain down. Keeps going._ _ _ _

____They can't keep going like this much longer._ _ _ _

____Outside, the kaiju screams, and the salt spray of the ocean is heavy against their side._ _ _ _

We've done this before _ _ _ _, Mako says, meeting his gaze. Knowing what he wants to say, what he wants to tell her.____

____His laugh is short. A hard, bitter noise. How many years, and he never thought to prepare for this. How many years, and he never thought that lightning could strike twice._ _ _ _

____Mako flexes the Jaeger's fingers and tries to throw another punch. The kaiju catches it in its hand, closes itself around the hand and he hears the sickening crunch of metal joists like bone._ _ _ _

____Her scream echoes through the small pod, and his head pounds. Echoes with the memory of Yancy's yells, of the way his heart was beating in the moment before everything changes._ _ _ _

Everything's going to change now, too, isn't it?

____Her eyes meet his, and she's trying to look like she isn't afraid, but she is. He can feel it - the hot panic - in his veins, just as with everything else. They're too connected for her to try to pull this now._ _ _ _

____His heart is pounding out of his chest._ _ _ _

____He can't do this again._ _ _ _

____Her lip tics, and she reaches out to grasp at his fingers, squeezing hard. Her pupils are wide and dark, and she says_ , ___Raleigh. Raleigh, if something happens _ _ _…___

____The breaths come in short bursts now. The kind when you're trying to remember how your body moves naturally. When you aren't bleeding out the side of your suit, when spots aren't dotting your vision. When the monster outside isn't calling your name._ _ _ _

____Her hand touches her ribcage and she winces. Sags against the heavy machinery holding her in place._ _ _ _

You have to listen to me _ _ _, _she says.____

____He can't. He isn't ready. He needs time._ _ _ _

____The kaiju outside gives another shriek, its talon tearing at the exterior. There isn't time. There was never time._ _ _ _

I love you.

____The Jaeger sustains another punch along the right side. And another. And then there's the loud squeal of metal as it detaches from its welds, as the kaiju reaches in with a claw and knocks at the wiring. As her body knocks against the machinery, as she staggers to her feet._ _ _ _

____The kaiju looks at him. He looks at the kaiju._ _ _ _

____The claw reaches in and drags her out into empty space._ _ _ _

____She falls._ _ _ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

 

 

"Raleigh!"

He reaches for her and claps his hand against her stomach, her hair brushing against his skin as he begins to wake. She's got him pinned to the bed with her hands on his shoulders.

"It's a dream," she says.

The sheets are tangled around his legs and he sits up in the dark and sees nothing. The barest hint of the outline of her face present in the sliver of light that comes in through the window.

He reaches for her, burying his mouth against her shoulder. Tucking his head against the crook of her neck. "You're here," he says.

"It was a dream," she repeats, her hand tracing patterns against his back.

He pulls away and hopes to see her face. Sees nothing. A slurry of shapes in the dark.

"I thought - I thought I lost you."

His voice cracks and she pulls him taut against her. Holds him there. Breathes his name over and over again against the shell of his ear. Reminds him of where he is, of who he is now.

"See? I'm still here."

His fingers curl against the hard bone of her shoulder. "Don't go anywhere."

"I wasn't planning on it."

The tears fall hot against the fabric of her shirt and he doesn't move. Just pants against her, trying to breathe through it.

"Promise," he says.

And she forgets it isn't one she can make.

"I promise," she swears. The way parents swear to children that monsters aren't real.

___ _

 

 

 

(He tells no one else about the dream. How can he?

Besides, the longer he's stayed in Hong Kong, the more superstitious he's become. If he says something, he makes it real; if he says it out loud, it becomes a statement that exists in reality, that hovers in the air. Dreams are different. Dreams belong to the mythical, the imaginary.

If he can swallow it down and face the next day as if nothing has happened, it means he has better odds.

Impossible odds are for the young; impossible odds, he's learned, are a hard line in the sand he needs to tow.)

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

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The first time they suit up in years is to test the new Mach VI. It's a prototype, built mostly from Mako and Tendo's hours of work with a small team of engineers and technicians.

Code named Lux November, and gleaming with new steel and chrome.

There's little things too that he's forgotten about this process. The way everything seems to become part of a ritual; the quiet of the room when the suits are fitted around them; the heaviness of the boots; the heaviness on the shoulders; the weight of what it means to fight.

He looks at her out of the corner of his eye, and she grins.

"Our first meeting," he says, and she shakes her head.

"Not quite. Close, though."

He reaches for her hand as they head towards the conn-pod.

___ _

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There are no secrets in the neural handshake. Tendo cracks jokes at them over the comm as they stand and wait for the instructions, for the machine to learn who they are, for them to learn who the machine is.

____in five, four…_ _ _ _

Tendo counts down and he closes his eyes. Habit, still, even after all this time.

There are no secrets - everything slips through the filter of his memories because it's her, because they know each other, because they trust each other - so it all pours in: crisp flashes of images, drenched in blue, that tell their story. Because it is their story - different than the first time they drifted, different than two separate people learning about each other. Now it's his laughter, chasing Yancy around a yard, mixing with the noise of her cries; the sound of a city being ripped apart drowning out the squealing noise of a dying Jaeger; the noise of the rain drumming against the tops of umbrellas, and the booming thunder of helicopter rotors, as they peer into each other's faces for the first time; the day they stood together in the solarium and made promises without speaking; the sparks of Gipsy being rebuilt; wrinkling sheets and uncomfortable mattresses and smiles that pinch at the cheeks.

Stacker, too, and Yancy, making faces at them through the drift.

____handshake at a hundred percent, and holding._ _ _ _

It's like falling into icy waters. A shock to the system and his eyes open, and he can feel her in his head just as he knows he's in hers. He tilts his head at her. "You ready?"

Mako reaches forward, punches at one of the switches on the console to run preliminary tests, and he has a flash of an old nightmare: her hand wrapped around a shard of metal, bleeding. An ugly section of arm where bone pokes crookedly at the skin.

She shakes her head, grinning; his fear hides in her smile. "Ready."

Lux slams its right hand into the palm of its opposite, and bows.

___ _

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Lux November: commissioned in November 2032 for restoration efforts in the Pacific Ocean. The first Mach VI.

Not the last.

___ _

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The kaiju crawl out of the ocean a year later. Tread along the coasts of New Zealand, tear at the land with sharper claws and new metal mouths and joints.

The news reporter reading the wires on air looks stunned. Repeats the report in a slower cadence the second time around.

After all, this was supposed to have ended years ago.

(Over breakfast, Mako looks at him over the front page of the newspaper, her mouth pressed into a thin line.

Neither of them say anything.

Somehow they never planned for this.)

___ _

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That night, he sleeps with her wrapped around him. Her face tucked against his chest, her leg thrown over his, her hands playing at his hair.

"It will be all right," she says, pressing kisses against the side of his face. And how can she know that?

But she runs her hands over his face, underneath his shirt. Kisses him and kisses him.

And when she wraps her legs around him and sinks down onto his hard length, it is just a reminder - they are still alive, they are together, they are whole.

Still the warriors they always were.

___ _

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____The kaiju peers inside the wrecked shell of the Jaeger. Tears its way through the ribcage and blinks its wet glassy eyes twice. Sees her. Fixes on her._ _ _ _

____There's a moment when time stills. When his heart pounds heavy in his throat and sounds like a familiar memory, echoes like his brother's dying shout. She reaches for his hand…_ _ _ _

____Doesn't even scream._ _ _ _

____Ripped from the pod with a quiet gasp, her fingers brushing against his as the kaiju throws her body into the ocean._ _ _ _

____He slams his arm into the kaiju's side, emptying the clip of his cannon. Watching the blue of its blood spatter across the tops of the waves, black and oily in the moonlight._ _ _ _

____Her body doesn't float._ _ _ _

____The kaiju roars as it collapses into the water then, its body ripped and gutted and bleeding out into the water._ _ _ _

____He tries to pull himself out of the pod. Tries to disengage the mechanisms that keep him locked in place. He has to find her. She's still alive somewhere in the water._ _ _ _

____She's counting on him._ _ _ _

___ _

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The klaxons go off at 0300. Their first engagement since the collapse of the breach. Since the end of the war.

He blinks twice in the dark and tries to forget the sheen of the ocean at night, the impossible visibility of trying to sight a fallen body in a heavy suit among the frothing water.

Mako sets her hand on his forearm. "Are you ready?"

He gives her a light kiss. The curve of her silhouette in the moonlight is enough to make him want to stay. To keep her as far from the battle as possible.

"Yeah," he says, his voice a hard rasp. "I'm ready."

___ _

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It happens quicker than he imagines - either that, or his reaction time's slowed down considerably since the last time he got in the suit. The kaiju are faster this time around, and the Mach VI, for all its strengths, still has the hallmarks of the old Jaegers. They can only respond as quickly as their pilots.

The kaiju catches them on the right side, knocking a series of punches and swiping at the shoulder with its barbed tail. All the time lurking in the breach has given them too much time to evolve. To develop.

They exhaust their plasma cannons; closer to the end of the battle, the conn-pod nearly overheats; the kaiju tears large gaps along the side of the machine, and deep along the hydraulic joints of its legs; but they win. It's a minor victory, eked out by the skin of their teeth, but it's a dead kaiju and somehow they're still alive.

Barely, by the looks of it. The conn-pod is nearly collapsed, and the number of hits on her side of the Jaeger has left Mako wincing on their walk back towards the Shatterdome.

"Can you make it?"

She grits her teeth and forces her feet to move. "Keep going."

___ _

 

 

 

(He stays with her during her stint in the infirmary. After his fourth consecutive night in the uncomfortable hospital chair, Mako frowns at him. _ _ __Raleigh_ , ___she says _ _ _, _you can't keep staying in the hospital_. ___

He licks his lips _ _ _. _Sure, I can_ , ___he says _ _ _. _Got clearance from the admin people and everything._ ___

She shakes her head firmly and he wonders if she'll tear her stitches open _ _ _. _That's not what I meant and you know it.____

____How are you feeling?_ _ _ _

____I'm fine_ , ___she says _ _ _.___

He leans his head against the bed rail, and she runs her hand through his hair. _ _ __I just want to make sure.____

____You can't keep punishing yourself with all the things that could go wrong._ _ _ _

Looking up, he meets her eyes, bright and wide. _ _ __I'm not.____

____Things will go wrong. It's war._ _ _ _

He stands and presses a light kiss to her temple, and she smiles in answer.

____What?_ _ _ _

____I love you_ , ___he says _ _ _. _A lot._ ___

___We'll keep going. Like we've always done._ _ _

He doesn't know if he can keep going. Doesn't know how anyone could. And there were the Kaidonovskys, weren't there, and other couples, too, he barely remembers from the hallways of the academy - scratchy images of faces and smiles, glossy photos in the articles and newspapers.

And he knows it's irrational. It's unfair. Loss isn't new, especially not to either of them, but how can this compare? He's seen inside her head, and known the contours of her body, and doesn't remember the person that he was before he met her; she's his co-pilot, she's his partner, she's his friend and he doesn't know how he would even begin to confront the monster of absence and space that would crawl out of him if she were to…

If she were to leave. If she were to become absent.

And his brother is still a deep wound, his brother still haunts him, but Mako is different. Has to be. So how can he confront the possibility of a future where he can only see her in fragments in his memories, in the dreams he used to share with her, in the times they had shared together before? How can his head deal with the sudden disconnect?

He watches her sleep in the hospital bed and wishes he could crawl in with her. Wishes he could press himself against her back and feel them as close to a single body as possible outside of the jaeger.

She opens her eyes, blinks at him sleepily. _Sleep_ , she murmurs, patting the mattress with her hand.

And he skims her hair with the tips of his fingers. _Just as soon as you do, sweetheart._

It makes sense now. Cherno Alpha and its antiquated systems, its lack of ejection pods - he understands. Maybe it just made more sense that way. No use fighting without the only other person you would want fighting beside you.)

___ _

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That night, she dreams of him.

The inside of the jaeger is stifling, excess heat venting directly into the pod and warming the suits. There's a screech as kaiju swim up from the depths of the ocean, slither around them, flank them from all sides.

It's a losing mission, however they look at it. But they'll go out fighting, just as always.

The console starts sparking and Raleigh punches at one of the buttons. "Fuck," he says and she looks at him. "Have to do a manual override." His laugh is quiet. She nearly misses it. "Just like old times, huh?"

They take a few staggering steps to try to get distance between them and the kaiju. The plasma cannons are either shot or drained, and to say they're exhausted would be an understatement.

Her laugh is an echo of his. "Yes," she says.

One of the kaiju knocks against the back of the machine with its limb, and they fall to their knees in the sea.

"It's all or nothing," he says, and she nods.

He reaches for her hand and the kaiju runs its jagged limb through the chest of the jaeger, cutting through wires and metal and sparking electronics. Severing them from each other.

He yells her name. A long second before his body hits the water.

She follows not long after. Swims frantically and squints into the dark for the outline of his suit.

___ _

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____are you awake?_ ___ he whispers; it's the middle of the night and she is half-asleep or half-awake and everything feels like a continuation of the story. She reaches out and grazes his cheek with the tips of her fingers. He is real, then, or the dream feels real enough that it has delivered him to her.

 _ _ _ _are you here?____ she asks.

____i'm here._ _ _ _

____then i'm awake._ _ _ _

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In the morning, there is cold realization and a new stack of reports, just in from some of the other Shatterdomes that are beginning to reopen, and breakfast.

They still have their breakfasts.

Will continue to have them as long as there are mornings, as long as there can still be breakfasts.

He puts too much sugar in her coffee and she burns the oatmeal but they sit together and eat, argue over sections of the newspaper, kick at each other's feet underneath the table.

This morning is a little different. This morning, his fingers play at the ends of her sleeve, standing in for the words on the tip of his tongue.

"Your dream last night," he says, and she looks down, shovels another spoonful of gritty oatmeal into her mouth. "I saw it."

"It was only a dream."

His hand works at the edge of her sleeve. Moves down to rest on the top of the table.

"And I've seen flashes of yours, too, you know," she answers.

"I'm trying to say…"

And she takes his hand. Closes her hand over his. "I know," she says. "I know."

He leans close, his forehead bumping hers as he kisses her. "I can't lose you," he says, voice ragged. "You understand?"

"You won't."

"People don't plan on it," he says, and he sees his grief in her eyes, sees his tears sliding down her cheeks. Her resolve is a hard knot in his belly, and he leans in and kisses her. Thanks her for the strength she has, for the strength she's given him.

"I know," she says, and her voice cracks. "But you won't." Her fingernails scratch at his cheeks when she cups his face, and his head leans forward against her hands. "I'll always be here. No matter what."

He takes her hand. Kisses the knuckles, the red string over the last finger.

"You won't lose me," she says. "I promise."

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It's a Category 7 just off the coast of Alaska.

One of the first fights where they have another jaeger for backup - a team out of California fresh out of the academy and looking like a pair of teenagers - but they need it. The kaiju - nicknamed Outlaw - is a giant, towering over the city and ripping at parts of the jaeger with its enormous mouth and jagged teeth.

They're taking hit after hit after hit, even with a two-on-one advantage, and at the rate this is going, they're going to lose more ground than they've gained. Outlaw's getting dangerously close to breaching populated territory and they're leeching power.

In his head, Mako doesn't even entertain the possibility of defeat. Just keeps running over possible gambits and strategies, anything that could give them the upper hand. She's always been a better chess player than he is, but he's always enjoyed the resourcefulness of being spontaneous.

There's an evacuated naval base, and rows upon rows of battleships lying there, just waiting to be used. He reaches for one and snaps it against Outlaw's face. Watches as the ship breaks into pieces over the hard skull.

The kaiju goes down. Hard.

But it doesn't stay still for long. The tail ropes around their legs just as it starts to fall and they slam down against the sea bed with it.

Mako's side hits the floor first, and the machine gives an enormous rattle as the momentum works its way through like an aftershock. The radio crackles - nearly non-functional - as the other team gives a crackle of a report, words fading in and out. They're coming to get them, Raleigh assumes, but right now, there's bigger problems to worry about.

Outlaw raises its ugly head, blinks its wet eyes twice at them and roars. Its jaw unhinges, the hot breath steaming against the exterior glass. Its tail snaps against Lux's head once - twice - before the teeth bite into the shoulder and tear. Between the corrosive saltwater and the hits they're sustaining, the consoles keep throwing sparks and hissing angrily at them.

He turns to Mako, struggling amid the wires of the pod. The console gives another hiss, the screens flickering.

____raleigh, listen to me!_ \-- _ _ _

He shakes his head and she turns to look at him, her eyes wide through her visor. "Raleigh," she says, her voice firm. "Focus. This is different than what happened before. You can do this."

Around them, the landscape is pristine. White snow and ice. Freezing and unpopulated. Emptied of people.

 _ _ _ _raleigh!_ \-- ___ and the noise of her body hitting the water, recalled from another nightmare he doesn't remember, or from another memory he's blotted out --

Outlaw screams in their face. A high-pitched squeal and when Mako reaches for his hand, she grazes his wrist instead.

(and her body, falling into space;

her body, dropping into nothingness;

nothing left for him to find, nothing left for him to bury or mourn)

"Raleigh!"

___ _

 

 

(The other team gives them a helping hand. Pushes them up to standing.

They finish the fight between the two of them, exchanging blows and ducking Outlaw's mouth, teeth, and tail.

It ends with Outlaw's head being shoved through an ice floe, with Iron Marauder's thin javelin spearing through its skull over and over again.)

___ _

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She doesn't speak to him on the flight back. Lux goes on ahead of them, too damaged to ferry them back.

The helicopter rotors are the only noise, beating loudly overhead, as they sit in the cabin and don't speak. Even her mind is shuttered from him. Silence, everywhere he turns.

Even after they touch down, not a word.

___ _

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Mako doesn't explode. The opposite of volatile at all points. Stable, in her moods, in the way she approaches her work, in everything. So when they get back to the base and she's marching through the halls, sullen, he knows something has shifted.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong?" he says as she slings one of their duffel bags over her shoulder and marches ahead of him towards their quarters. "You haven't been talking to me the whole ride back."

She stops. The duffel bag drops to the ground, and she turns to look at him, her expression nearly glacial.

"When were you going to tell me?" she says, nearly inaudible.

"What are you talking about?"

She huffs, picking the bag up and marching towards the room again. "When," she says, punctuating the word with particular venom, "were you going to tell me?"

He shakes his head and she swears under her breath in Japanese.

"行ってらっしゃいI."

His hand reaches for her wrist and pulls her back towards him. Keeps her from running, from putting further distance between them. "What are you talking about?"

And when her eyes meet his this time, they're hard. "I was inside your head, remember?" she whispers, tilting her head down, her hair falling in front of her face like a curtain.

"Hey," he says. "I'm not going anywhere."

She stares at him. Looks directly into his eyes.

"I'm not," he affirms. "I'm _ _ __not_." ___

"Okay," she says. "All right."

"Mako," he says. "Please."

She sniffs. "I want to believe you."

"But…?"

She leans her weight against him. "I know you," she says.

"Mako."

She won't look at him. Picks up the bag and keeps walking.

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This is how it happens: there's a mid-day alert of a kaiju breaking surface near Mexico nearly two months later. Lux November is dispatched to rendezvous with the Latin American bases of the Pacific Defense Corps to engage with two Cat. 7s - codenamed Tracer and Sawtooth.

There are three Jaegers assigned to the mission - Lux included - so when they emerge onto the scene, it seems like a typical clean-up job.

It's anything but.

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The alarms in the pod are just as annoying as he remembers. They're shrill, going off every second like the pulse of a throbbing headache, and they aren't telling him anything he doesn't already know.

"How are you doing?" he shouts over the noise of the alarms, and Mako gives a disbelieving laugh.

Her suit's cut along the right side, blood beginning to stain the outside of the white suit.

"Fine," she says, reaching to throw a hard punch against Sawtooth's jaw. There's the hard noise of snapping bone, and he grins.

"That's my girl."

It happens in an instant. Sawtooth knocks them back and Tracer throws its forearm against them, gouging a deep wound into the center of Lux's chest. Into the pod. Sawtooth takes the opportunity to leap onto their backs and drag them down into the water.

___ _

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The pod floods in seconds.

Raleigh's struggling to get his bearings - between the two of them, panic is fighting for attention just as much as they're fighting for control - and Mako's searching blindly, fumbling to find the switch on the console to launch the escape pods.

There are flashes of nightmares bleeding into this, flashes of memories of Alaska bleeding into this, and he locks up. Strains against the wires, against the suit, against the pressure of the water.

 _ _ _ _you have to keep still_ , ___she thinks, and her hand knocks against the switch.

There's the whir of hydraulics and then he's being launched in the escape pod, shooting towards the surface.

 

 

 

 

 

By the time he breaks up into the surface, the battle has ended. The other pilots have shuttled the kaiju corpses further away from shore, and the military ships are beginning to head out into the polluted waters, searching for them.

He drifts on the water like debris, sitting up and waiting for her pod to pop up onto the surface.

The longer he waits, the more nervous he becomes.

What if she couldn't find the switch in time? And he - her co-pilot - ejected before she did, before waiting to see if she had a backup plan of her own. His hands grip the edge of the pod, and he bites the insides of his cheeks until they're raw.

He can't help but think of those seconds before - the panic heavy in her own head and her desperate attempt to rein it in and find control, to find some kind of resolve to be able to finish the mission, to do what she needed to do.

One of the small cruisers from the ships approaches, flares firing into the air. Signaling him.

He ducks his head and prays.

He needs her. The _ _ _ _world_ ___ needs her _ _ _.___

___ _

 

Her pod breaks onto the surface five minutes later.

___ _

 

She's rushed to the hospital the minute they return to the base. His hands won't stop shaking but he chases the gurney down the labyrinthine hallways, trying to pay attention to the rapid-fire chatter between the doctors and the nurses. He doesn't catch much.

But there's the blood, sticky and clotting, when they pull away the pieces of her suit, and there's the paleness of her color when they pull off her helmet, and the way her breathing seems to stutter, shallow and uneven. She's delirious, too. Keeps talking to him, and he takes her hand and answers her questions that aren't questions, replies to sentences she doesn't even finish.

She calls for the marshal, and he doesn't know what to say.

Her fingers slacken around his and he tightens his grip. To remind her that she can take from him what she needs. That there is no him without her anymore.

On her last finger, the color of the red string looks dull in the fluorescent light.

___ _

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(Three days is how long she's unconscious.

There's a steady stream of blood and saline that the doctors use to rehydrate her, to try to give her strength, but the rest of it, he's told, is a combination of other factors. Other complications.

There's the battle, and there are the wounds. She'd fumbled for the switch for too long after, and the lack of oxygen may have impacted her. And then the amount of time they had to wait to get her back to the hospital.

He hears none of it. What he realizes is how little use he is to her now, how little use he was to her when it mattered. All he hears is his brother shouting for help; all he hears is the noise of her body hitting the water. Everything he hears nowadays only half-real.

He sleeps by her bedside, lets his cheek become accustomed to the hard kiss of the bedrail. Holds her hand and listens to the whir of machines breathing for her, listens to the whir of machines keeping the rhythm of her life.

He kisses her knuckles and washes her face every morning and speaks to her. Can't stop telling her about how sorry he is, about how he shouldn't have let her eject him from the jaeger first, about the repairs Tendo and the crew are doing to Lux to make sure she's ready for battle the next time they step out. As soon as she's awake.

As soon as she's able to fight again.

___ _

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Mako sleeps for three days; he sleeps for none.

Every time he closes his eyes, he finds himself back in the jaeger, back in the memory of panic and despair and failure. Knowing he can do nothing to change himself or what happens, and knowing that what that leads to is always this: always Mako, injured or hurt and lying in hospital, and always with the idea that he can't go on without her. Not without her.

He returns to the Kaidonovskys, to the memory of Cherno Alpha and the idea that to fight meant fighting together or dying together, of no other options.

Thinks of how many ways he has almost killed her.

Were they supposed to be ready to fight this war again, so soon after the end of the first one? Was he supposed to be better than this?

 

 

 

She opens her eyes on the fourth day and finds him looking at her with bloodshot eyes and despair hanging over his shoulders like a heavy weight.

"Hey," she murmurs, her voice no more than a low growl.

He buries his head in her shoulder and cries. Buries himself against her frail body and repeats her name like a prayer.)

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It isn't self-fulfilling prophecy; it isn't turning his back on her - it's hiding, plain and simple. He isn't ready to go back. He isn't ready to put himself back in a jaeger, to put himself in her head and listen to himself fail her, or listen to her thoughts as she was slowly drowning, as she was struggling to escape; he isn't ready to confront all of the possible ways she could die, all of the ways he would relive it, need to relive it, live with it, with her in his head and all of her memories and all of her last thoughts.

He's a coward.

Has known that since the beginning.

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(She was right all along:

he stays with her in the hospital, out of the hospital, through her rounds of physical therapy;

he stays with her until the last possible second;

and at the last possible moment, he leaves while she sleeps. Hops a flight to Nova Scotia and looks down at the floor to avoid looking back.

 

 

 

 

This is unforgivable. He knows that too.

 

 

Still wears the red string, knotted tight around his finger.)

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Nova Scotia is open space. Is nothing but space, and cold salt air that reminds him that this isn't Hong Kong anymore, that this is running just as Alaska was running. But Alaska is saved for other griefs, other failures. This is, after all, a new page.

The soil is rocky under his shoes and the morning is still dim and dark, heavy with winter.

He hasn't spoken to her since he stepped off the plane. And not for lack of effort on her part.

There were calls, at first. Nonstop, endless calls at all hours of the day and night, the phone ringing on its cradle like a ghost passing through a house.

He doesn't pick up. He never picks up.

To hear her voice would put everything into perspective, and he's too busy chasing its opposite; he needs the distance, needs to remind himself why distance is the safer option for both of them. (And besides, hadn't she once told you the story of the red thread?

And besides, aren't you keeping her alive to keep loving? What is pain now compared to the pain of loss later?)

Besides, he already knows the way it would go: if she only spoke a word over the phone, if she only breathed and told him that she needed him, it would be enough to make him give everything else up; it would be enough to get him to chase his demons back into the machine that birthed them. For her?

For her?

He'd do anything.

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So he doesn't pick up her calls. Tries writing a postcard, but finds the words stop coming after he wastes the first two lines on bullshit. What is there that he can even say?

Instead, there's work.

There is no PPDC here - not on the Atlantic coast - but he tries to do his part as best as he can. Donates to the war effort; rallies to send them medical supplies and money; builds and builds and builds.

There is no wall anymore. That option has gone.

What's left are the warehouses. The places where they rivet and solder and weld the plates that will become jaegers. The places where they put together the small parts that eventually build fighting giants.

Mac, his gruff, burly conveyor-belt partner, leers at him one morning before he has a sip of his morning coffee and growls, "'ey, didn't you use t' be one of 'em?"

The torch sparks to life with a click. "One of what?"

"The pilots. Swear I've seen you around somewhere or other."

"Or other's right," he says, and Mac scowls.

"Fine. Was just lookin' for something to break the time up anyways."

"How about the work?" he says, and Mac huffs.

With a nudge of his fingers, his goggles fix around his face and he peers down at the metal and starts.

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He finds himself alone in the hangar that night. Again. Everything silent, just as it always is.

And then: the noise of her boots beating a steady rhythm against the metal grating of the corridor. Following him here. Meeting him.

The doors creak open and then, her shadow filters onto the floor.

 _ _ _ _When were you going to tell me?_ ___ she says, and her voice is quiet with rage and disappointment. _ _ __Were you ever going to say anything?_ ___

He shifts to stand, and finds Gipsy looming tall on its launch pad. Looking down at him with warmth.

 _ _ _ _Mako_ , ___he says, and she strides forward into the light. Sets a hand against Gipsy to steady herself.

 _ _ _ _You left_ ,___ she says _ _ _.___

He ducks his head. Doesn't deny the accusation. ____Yes_ , ___he says _ _ _. _I did. I had to.____

____You didn't have to._ _ _ _

____For you, I did._ _ _ _

____For me?_ ___ she snorts, approaching him _ _ _. _You didn't do it for me._ ___ She gives him a forceful shove, and he stumbles backward a few steps _ _ _. _You know what, pilots don't do that to each other._ Partners _don't do that to each other. They don't leave.____

His hands reach out to deflect the attack and settle on her shoulders instead. They must be heavy; when he touches them to hers, she stills. ____I did it to keep you safe.____

 _ _ _ _Don't give me that_ , ___she says _ _ _.___

____You were in my head. You know what I …_ _ _ _

____Yeah_ , ___she says, and her voice cracks on the word _ _ _. _I know. But I thought that we would talk about it. That you would try to talk to me. That we would try to do it together.____

 _ _ _ _That's the problem_ , ___he says, and his hands slide down her arms to take her hands _ _ _.___

____What?_ _ _ _

____You know what I'm scared of._ _ _ _

She nods, and when he meets her gaze, her eyes are bright in the dim room. ____But you have to try. You have to come back.____

 _ _ _ _I can't lose you_ , ___he says _ _ _. _Not after everything. I can't… let myself do that to you.____

 _ _ _ _It's war_ , ___she says, craning her head to peer behind her shoulder. Gipsy gives a quiet groan and he looks to her. Almost hopes to see the whir of her red heart again. _ _ __You have to fight. Either that, or you don't. There's always going to be… risk.____

____But I can't risk you._ _ _ _

____Even at the cost of inaction? Even at the cost of not fighting?_ _ _ _

He hums, pressing his lips together. _ _ __I'm doing my part.____

____Not as large a part as you could be._ _ _ _

He takes a step forward, leans his forehead against hers. ____You're in my head,____ he says _ _ _ _. You can't understand me?____

His mouth brushes hers lightly - the punctuation for the sentence - and waits. She leans in for the second kiss and deepens it, opening her mouth to him with a quiet noise.

 _ _ _ _Understand you or not, you have to make a choice_ , ___she whispers _ _ _. _Make the right choice._ ___

He pulls away and her face looms large in the small space between them. Makes him feel like a boy peering into the face of a giant. Like the first time he ever saw Gipsy. Like the first time he ever saw a Jaeger in person.

 _ _ _ _I choose to let you live_ , ___he says _ _ _. _That's what I choose._ ___

She closes her eyes, and cries. The tears rush down her cheeks faster than his thumbs can brush them away, and they linger like that for a moment. Silent. Basking in each other's presence. In the weight of the choices they make.

 _ _ _ _I love you_ , ___he says _ _ _,___ and she makes a soft, choked noise as she clears her throat.

____You're taking this away from me! The one thing I have fought for my entire life._ _ _ _

Nothing but accusation in her eyes when she looks up and meets his gaze. He has no answer.

___ _

___ _

___ _

 

(He wakes to the noise of Mac's snoring, and a window frozen over. The sky outside completely dark. Not even streetlights to remind him he isn't alone.

The sheets are coarse against his skin, and his bed is empty.

 

 

 

Several thousand miles away, Mako jerks awake with a cry and knocks the glass of water on her nightstand to the floor. It shatters, and her heart breaks for a reason she doesn't want to voice aloud.)

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

What options are left?

The next week, the next month, she is making visits to the academy and searching for a new pilot. It isn't usual but it isn't unprecedented, and every jock asshole that's flown a good sim suddenly believes themselves talented enough to be able to pilot a jaeger with her. With the famous, the renowned, the war-ending Mako Mori.

She has Tendo pre-screen as many applicants as she can.

Goes through the piles of potentials in the Kwoon like swatting flies.

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___( _days of war____ is what echoes through her head in the Marshal's sternest tone, and she returns and returns to her locker - the same one for however many years - and to old photos of her and Raleigh, and to the rattle of dogtags that have been through too much.

 _ _ _ _days of war_ ___ when all she wants to do is unlace her boots and find home again, find what she is missing, and sink into the recesses of her bed. When all she wants is for the Marshal to come home, for the noise of his heavy step when he used to cross through the corridors to check to see if she was sleeping, and sit on the edge of her bed and test her as only he ever did.

To see if she'd laugh if he ran his fingers over her ribs, to see if she needed a talk or a hug.

She _ _ _needs___ him has always been the answer.

And now something else has packed up and gone.

Now she is left with no family, no partner, nothing but the noise of her own restless heart.)

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

He first sees it on the bus, crossing over the boundary into New York state and chugging away towards New York City.

The TVs on the bus are fuzzy and old, but the twenty-four hour news channels are still plugging away. Broadcasting endless footage of the wreckage of the latest attack in Vietnam and Laos.

Thousands of families huddling alongside the river, leering at the disintegrating piles of kaiju flesh.

They cut to a picture of her face. An old academy photo that makes him sit up further in his seat. (It's nearly four, and outside is nothing but dark forest.)

She looks good, if exhausted. Her face is drawn from the weight she's lost, and the dark circles are more prominent underneath her eyes; whatever anti-radiation meds they've been giving her have also drained her of some of her color, but even with all of that, she's breathtaking. She's in her black flight suit, and walking alongside another man. Shorter than she is, broader and stockier.

"Mako Mori and Daniel Mackie, direct from another engagement with a Category 8 in the South Pacific."

The cameras are too distant to catch any audio, but he notices the set of her shoulders. Can't help but notice the weariness, the irritation.

"Any words?" the reporter shouts and Daniel turns, flashing a grin at the camera. His fingers brush at the small of her back, and Raleigh's hands tense against the armrests.

She brushes him off. Keeps walking.

Daniel shrugs and follows. "There you have it," the reporter says, with a shrug. "Some of the best chances we have at surviving this war, on their way back to base."

Raleigh watches as she tracks down the hall, as she slips quietly out of frame.

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

 

New York is all metal and noise.

He spends days getting lost in it. Trying to find his bearings. Work leads him here, the factories lead him here, but he still isn't prepared for it.

Part of him is glad for it, sinking into the noise of other people and unimportance, but he can't say he doesn't miss the isolation of the desolate icy places he's spent good portions of his years. Here, there's too much to confront, too much to deal with.

The first thing he does is buy a newspaper and check into company housing.

(They're already in the process of putting together parts for a theoretical Mach VII, or that's what the rumors are, anyway. He doesn't believe it, knows better than to believe any of the shit that floats through the halls, but that doesn't keep him from thinking about it.

A Mach VII.

He imagines himself in the flight suit again, piloting the monster. Imagines the smoothness of its handling, the upgrades made to the conn-pods or to the reaction times, to the feeling of fighting with something more evolved than the last time he stepped into the battlefield.

Thinks about it too long and nearly singes the ends of his fingers with an iron.)

___ _

___ _

___ _

 

 

Tendo comes six months after that.

(And he's stayed. Isn't that funny how things work out?)

His apartment is a dingy shithole, but it suits him. Suits his wallet, his feelings, and his general attitude towards the whole damn place. Tendo looks older, even more cleaned up, if possible. Wears fatherhood like a badge, and brings a whole new set of photos of his son and young daughter.

"How's Allison?" he says, buying them both a round of beers.

Tendo shrugs out of his jacket and slouches against the chair. Always a fan of a decent dive. He takes a long draught of his beer. "Good," he answers. "Tired. Same as you'd expect. What about you?"

Raleigh nearly expects his eyes to narrow, but Tendo's face stays surprisingly calm. Relaxed and open.

He shrugs. "Just following the work."

"Yeah, following the work," he repeats, scoffing. "Bullshit."

"Oh, come on," he says. "You don't like the fine beer?"

Tendo rolls his eyes. "I forgot the kind of asshole you could be," he says.

"Yeah, and what kind's that?"

His face splits into a smirk. "The special kind, of course. Ain't you always?"

"What?"

"Special."

Raleigh knocks his weight against Tendo's, slings an arm around his shoulders. "It's good to see you," he says, after a long pause.

"Yeah, yeah."

"No, I mean it, man."

Tendo looks at him, drains another portion of his beer. "You really aren't going to come back?"

Raleigh looks down, and Tendo just claps a hand to his back.

"Becket, my man," he says, "I think this night is clearly calling for shots."

Raleigh waves down the bartender.

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

 

 

(They get truly, tremendously, unbelievably fucked up that night. Tendo can barely stand by the end of it, and is slurring old academy songs at the top of his lungs as they lean against each other and try to crawl back to his dingy apartment.

They collapse onto his floor sometime near sunrise, and stay there until afternoon the next day.)

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

 

 

Herc comes two months after that. Brushes at his mouth with his hand, doesn't smile, doesn't slouch, doesn't say anything that could even be assumed to be encouraging about the way he's living.

"What the hell are you doing out here?" he asks, and he doesn't have an answer. "Jesus."

"I'm just trying to figure things out."

Herc scoffs. "You have them figured out all right. You just don't want to deal with 'em is all."

"Deal with what?"

Outside, the city fills with noise. Shrill screeching brakes and car horns, the chatter of thousands and thousands of people milling around, trying to figure out how to live their lives. And isn't that what he's trying to do? Just figure out how to live his life?

"You know what."

"I'm tired of this. Either say what you want, or…"

"Fine. Get your head out of your ass and come back and do what you're supposed to be doing. You weren't built to come out here and build walls, build Jaegers. You're a pilot. It's time you acted like one."

The snipe comes out before he can stop it. "What, like you?"

Herc huffs, turning back towards the door. "Get your head out of your ass and take a look around. Things aren't the same as they were the first time around." The door swings open, and then, he adds, "I wouldn't be here lookin' for you if we didn't need you."

He slams it shut behind him.

 

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

 

It's the first time he dreams about her in months.

They're in the Kwoon at night, and the room is all shadow and low light. He calls her name, and moves into the center of the room. Waits for her.

Maybe this time she isn't coming.

"What do you want, Raleigh?" she says, passing behind him.

"Listen," he says, "I just wanted to say…"

She shakes her head. "I don't want to talk."

He stands and turns to look at her. In the center of the room, under the low light, he can see the changes fighting has written on her body in ways he never noticed before. New scars ripple out from beneath the collar of her shirt, pale and jagged. He curls his fingers, fighting the urge to reach out and touch her.

"Then?"

She raises her hands in fighting stance and arches a brow. "I need the practice," she says.

She doesn't, but the lie's a good gesture, anyway.

There are no hanbo in here, so they lose themselves in the quiet noise of hands hitting hands, of the noise of air as they duck and parry, deflect and attack. He forgets how hard she hits, too, on the blows that she does land - open handed touches to his shoulder, the side of his ribs.

"I'm sorry," he says, and she trips him. Knocks him onto his ass right there on the floor.

"Point," she pants.

"Mako."

Her shirt shifts, and he sees a deep cut that's still healing, a red, angry mark against her body. She sniffs, and fixes her posture. Readjusts her shirt. "If you want to fix things, then you fix them. It isn't complicated."

She reaches out a hand and helps pull him to his feet. "It isn't simple."

Her jaw tightens. "It is simple. You stay or you go; you fix it or it stays broken."

"Wait," he says, and she heads towards the door. Doesn't turn around. "Wait."

Someone slips in through the door, hovers near the entrance with his arms crossed over his chest. "Sir."

"I'm sorry," he says.

And Mako scuffs her boot against the floor and heads out into the hall. Disappears the way people in dreams always do.

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

 

 

 

Antera makes landfall in Hong Kong three weeks later.

The first Category 9 of record with plasma cannons of its own built into the underside of its fleshy arms.

It's ugly, and all over the news for weeks. It's a two-week long engagement between it and six Jaegers.

Lux is there, looking older than he remembers seeing her. Lux is there. Sustains more hits than he'd think possible.

The Pacific grows corrosive and acidic with kaiju blood. Becomes another waste site.

___ _

___ _

___ _

 

(A scratchy interview when another Jaeger is rotated in, when Lux has to return to the Shatterdome for repairs:

____ranger mori, ranger mori - any updates on the fight with antera? any news on why it's taking so long for the jaegers to put him down this time?_ _ _ _

Her face is all impeccably restrained anger when she leans in and snarls in response.

____ranger mori, any comment?_ _ _ _

She leans in close, her lips pursed. War is never quick. Strides off-screen in two long steps. The marshal written in her every gesture.)

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

The battle against Antera is a scratch.

Killed, eventually, although they lose one of their longest standing Jaegers in the process.

It takes Hong Kong months to be able to begin to rebuild the damage sustained to the shoreline.

The Shatterdome remains.

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

 

This is how he finds his way back:

There's a news reel that finds its way through to him on the national channels, one detailing the profiles of Jaeger pilots with a feature on the Antera battle. She's in it. (Of course. After all, there are few pilots left of her caliber now anyway.) Featured as a key note among all the other dead, wounded, or retired.

It's mostly footage of her in the hospital. Drenched in sterile light and lying in a hospital bed, IVs running from her arm, connected to a dozen other machines beeping and humming around her.

He takes the first flight back to Hong Kong.

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

It is more than a reminder of death. It is a reminder of everything that she ever was to him, that they ever were to each other. A reminder that if Lux was to go, he wouldn't be there; he wouldn't be able to do anything; it's the staggering feeling of helplessness that reminds him of everything he walked away from.

He takes the first flight back and Hong Kong looks like a wasteland. The populations have been moved further inland, and the lights that used to decorate the nearby boneslums are missing.

The Shatterdome remains fixed on the bay like it always was, dark and gray and imposing with no other light around it to soften it.

Tendo claps a hand over his shoulders when he steps out of the helicopter. "You look dirtier than last time."

"Thanks, man," he answers.

The hangar doors groan as they're opened. When he walks in, there's four teams chattering and running around, servicing the Jaegers, and he finds he can't hear anything else. The noise of the Shatterdome drowns out everything. Even the sea.

___ _

___ _

 

 

They see each other again in the cafeteria.

It isn't a reunion scene, although that's what everyone expects. When he walks in, when he sees her and takes a seat at an adjacent table, the entire mess goes quiet. As if they're going to break out into a fight right there on the floor. Got to hand it to the academy - people used to talk about the Kaidonovskies that way, too, especially after one of their legendary fights - how little it changes.

She clicks the tines of her fork against the edge of the metal tray and eats, focus fixed to the unappetizing rations in a way that tells him that she's thinking too much about other things to really care about what she's putting in her mouth.

The kid sits next to her, too. His hand so close to hers it might as well be touching.

He doesn't move. Focuses on his own potatoes with the same intensity. Forces down small bites as Tendo kicks him hard underneath the table.

"You're worse than a pair of kids, you know that?" Tendo says.

He rolls his eyes.

"I got my own set, don't need to deal with the two of you too."

___ _

___ _

___ _

___ _

The reunion happens in the hallway outside his temporary quarters.

She's rummaging for her keys when he crosses to the room opposite hers, and opens his door. "Hey," he says, and she stills. Doesn't turn.

Even after all the time, he can still feel the pinpricks of her thoughts on the edges of his. Doesn't intrude into them - doesn't dare - but leans against the doorframe and looks at her.

"Hi," she says.

"Mako, I want you to know that I'm sorry."

"All right," she says.

"I came back."

She sighs. "And what does that prove to me? What is that supposed to mean to me?" He takes a few steps into the hall, lingers behind her shoulder. "You left, and now you came back. Those are your choices. I respect them, but they don't have anything to do with me."

The red twine around her finger has lost its color. Duller, now, in the light.

____you made a promise._ _ _ _

___"___ I'm sorry I broke my promise to you."

"I forgave you a long time ago."

"Well, I'm asking you to turn and look at me. Can you at least…?"

She begrudges him that, and leans against her own door with her keys tight in her hand. Looks around him, looks into the bare space of his room, looks everywhere but at him.

"Look at me?" he asks, and after a minute, she does.

It's a long moment, getting to see her again, to see how much she's changed, how much she's grown into how she looks now. Her hair is all dark, no longer touched with the blue that she wore when he first met her. It suits her, now. There's a severity and command to her presence that's stronger now than it was when he knew her, that speaks to the Marshal's own powerful presence.

Marshal'd be proud of her, he thinks, and she colors.

"So?" she says.

"At least just give me a chance," he says, "to fight with you. One last time in the jaeger. And if, after that, you don't want to pilot with me, that's fine."

She doesn't say anything.

"At least think about it."

"Fine," she says. "I will."

The key slides into the lock, and she pushes through into her room without another word.

___ _

___ _

 

(She agrees a few days later.

A single run. A courtesy.

 

 

Across the room, a boy scowls at him. Her new co-pilot, he guesses.)

 

 

 

 

It is one of the longest neural handshakes on record, and one he's going to remember for the rest of his life.

___ _

___ _

___ _

 

There's silence in his head in the few seconds before they connect, and then, it's everything he's been missing for the past few weeks, months, years. It's the sharpness of her resentment and the lingering taste of her sadness, her grief, the heat of her rage. And it isn't alone.

He sees the Shatterdome; he sees her attempts to try to find a new co-pilot; he sees the first few drifts with the kid, neither terrible nor great, but it's times of war, Stacker says, and that means doing whatever it is you need to in order to get the job done.

And his memories complement hers, each for each. For the noise of the mess and the Shatterdome, the roar of kaiju in the sea, he has the whistle of the wind in the isolated snowy factory camps of northern Canada or the sharp whistle of traffic on a New York business day; for the severity of the grief that digs its way into her when she's lying alone in her bunk at night, he has nothing but the canyon of emptiness, a consuming apathy that means nothing and means feeling nothing; for the sprawl of her legs in a large bed, he has the tight confines of a twin bunk, and a loud snoring bunkmate sleeping above him.

____i hated you when you left_ _ _ _

And there is the laughter of small children echoing across both of their minds. Meeting Tendo's children for the first time in months, he sees that. Sees how Mako plays with them, visits them, hears them call her ____a yi_. ___

____i only wanted to keep you for as long as i could_ _ _ _

And the first few weeks after he had left, reemerging in his memories in a drunken haze. Defined by streaks of light and the burn of hard alcohol down the throat.

____even if that meant being apart?_ _ _ _

Raleigh sees his brother in the corner of his eye, just as Mako pins the ranger stars on the dress whites of the kid's uniform. The kid fights a grin.

____if it meant keeping you alive._ _ _ _

Stacker folds his arms over his chest, towering over her as she rushes in through the front door after curfew. She smells of liquor and cigarettes, and the cash from her mahjjong winnings on base is tucked against the waistband of her slacks.

____even without you?_ _ _ _

First days at the Academy and Yancy knocks his weight against his shoulder with a cough of a laugh. "Ready to get your ass kicked?"

____whatever it takes._ _ _ _

And the first time they had slept together and wasted the rest of the day, the rest of the weekend just in that bed alone, just in learning the ways their limbs could fit around each others, could hold each other. Just to remind each other that their bodies fit, that they were larger than the sum of their parts, whatever they were. There's the swell of her laugh, and the wrinkle of the flat sheet as she pulls it over their heads.

____that's the worst idea i've ever heard_ _ _ _

Tendo places his hands on top of their enjoined ones, and the red twine is bright and new, its color full of depth in the sunlight.

____it's why i came back._ _ _ _

He toes into the Atlantic and scoops a starfish into the hand. Feels its pucker against his skin as it searches for something to keep it alive. Even starfish washed onto the shore fight to survive.

____why?_ _ _ _

She walks towards the edge of Victoria Bay, squints at the teams wading through the waters, shoveling kaiju blue off the top of the frothing waves.

____even if i can't, i need to try._ _ _ _

An enormous open room, and cherry blossoms drifting down onto the floor. A memory of a dream. A first dance.

____well, you came back._ _ _ _

His hands are rougher than she remembers, and there's newness and nervousness all over the memory. The anxious glance at the floor as he takes his steps, as he tries to avoid looking at her. As they try to think of something other than the enormity of whatever it is they're facing.

____i love you so i need to be here. with you._ _ _ _

There is the heaviness of his hand as it lands against the helmet of her suit. "All I have to do is fall," he hears himself say. "Anyone can fall."

___ _

___ _

___ _

 

The machine throws them back as they lock on. "Connection at a hundred percent," Tendo chimes over the radio. "A little rusty, eh, guys?"

Raleigh turns to catch her profile. Opens his hand, and Lux does the same.

"No," Mako answers, mirroring his action on her own side. Turns to look at him, and smiles. A small thing that barely lifts the corner of her mouth. "We're fine."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first night they lay together in a long while, and he takes his time in remembering the contours of her body. In the noises she makes when she's desperate, when she's impatient.

He runs his hands over the new scars that have appeared on her body since the last time they saw each other like this; some of them fresh and healing, others dull and rough to the touch.

She takes his hands between her own.

"Hey," she whispers, and he shifts further down the length of her body. Lays his head against her chest.

"I'm sorry."

She hums. "I know."

He can hear the rattle of her heartbeat, feels the rise and fall of her breathing.

"Don't leave," she says.

"I won't. Not again."

They both know better than to make promises, but times are different. Even after everything that's happened, she's still the only person he'd ever make a promise to. She's the only person that would deserve it.

 

 

 

 

The laws of flight don't change. Never have.

So each morning when he wakes up and finds her asleep beside him, each morning when they set out to the mess together to get their rations and their assignments, each time they survive another kaiju battle, he counts all the things he ought to be thankful for, runs over the things that have kept them alive til now, and hopes their luck never runs out.

There's a rule about that, too, isn't there?

Objects in motion.

 

 

 

 

Say a guy like him meets an unexpected force like that.

Say that it sticks around.

Say that they keep moving.

 

 

 

 

(There is no happy ending. No unhappy ending. The ending is they keep fighting. They keep living. The ending is that, for now, there is no end.)


End file.
